' And no 'La Terre.' 'La Debacle,' and 'Lourdes,' and 'Rome,'
'Paris,' and 'Fecondite,' and all the other books that have flowed from
Emile Zola's busy pen would have remained unwritten. But for my own part
I would rather that the world should possess those books than that Zola
when tempted, as he was, should have cast literature aside to plunge into
the abominable and degrading vortex of politics.
Like all men of intellect he certainly has his views on important
political questions, and again and again he has enunciated them in the
face of fierce opposition. In the Dreyfus case, however, he has been no
politician, but simply the indignant champion of an innocent man. And his
task over, truth and justice vindicated, he asks no reward, no office; he
simply desires to take up his pen once more and revert to his life
work:--The delineation and exposure of the crimes, follies, and
short-comings of society as now constituted, in order that those who
_are_ in politics, who control human affairs, may, in full knowledge of
existing evils, do their utmost to remedy them and prepare the way for a
better and a happier world.
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